Read Clarkesworld Anthology 2012 for Free Online

crossed the threshold. She had not turned around. It was my first clue that she was always trying to sense where I was.
    “Is he ever coming back?” I said.
    Maman did not say anything. She played with her implements. As I waited, she picked up a very sharp tool that I had never seen her use before. I knew that she was not working. She was trying to scare me into running away.
    “Did you send him away because of me?”
    She turned towards me and pursed her lips. “He’s left before. The last time was several months ago, when you were very young. He is going to get more food and gasoline.”
    “So he isn’t gone forever?”
    “Don’t worry. You’ll hear the whistle again, soon enough.”
    Several days later, when Frederick came back, I was still ecstatic at having had such a long and nonviolent conversation with maman. She had not come for me since we’d spoken. I climbed up top and watched him unload the dinghy. Maman came out and helped him as he lifted things up.
    “What was the land like?” I said. “Did you walk into the fires?”
    Maman and Frederick exchanged a look. He handed her a satchel of cans. Everything in the boat was blackened with soot.
    “The forests are still burning, but the fires are mostly gone from the city,” he said.
    “Did you see any humans?” maman said.
    “A good number,” he said. “They’re starting to emerge.”
    She looked down at the cargo. “Did you have to fight?”
    “Some,” Frederick said.
    They continued loading in silence, and didn’t respond to my increasingly chipper questions. I scurried back and forth across the length of the metal hand-rail, and barely avoided being inadvertently slapped under Frederick’s hand.

    I’d hoped that Frederick would be too tired from his journey to use the whistle, but as night fell, I heard its shriek. It was even more terrible than I remembered.
    I ran out and settled on his chest.
    He was quiet for several moments, then said, “You’ll be kind to the people you find, won’t you?”
    “I won’t even bother them at all!” I said. “Except maybe when they’re sleeping would it be maybe okay if I went inside their mattresses?”
    “That’s not what I meant. I meant…will you help them? They won’t be having as easy a time as you. Will you tell them where food is? And not hurt them?”
    “Talk to them…?” I said. “But…will they…will they have whistles?”
    “No, of course not. They don’t even know that people like you exist. They’ll probably be surprised to see you. But they’ll want your help. They’re hungry and they’re dying.”
    “Why don’t they get more cans?”
    “They can’t find them. And nobody is making more.”
    “Then why don’t they eat the spiders and the flies and the crumbs of…”
    “They can’t. They’re not like you. You’ll need to talk to them, and ask them questions, and see what they need, and do what they want, just like you would for your mother.”
    “Just like maman?” I said. “But maman doesn’t need any help from me.”
    “If she needed it, wouldn’t you help her? These people will need your help very much.”
    “Okay.” I lay there on Frederick for a while, and then murmured, “But they won’t have whistles, will they?”
    After Frederick let me scurry into the warm insides of the ship, he called maman onto the deck. I was too chilled to be willing to go farther than the door in order to listen to them.
    “…more survivors than I expected…” he said.
    “You knew there would be some,” maman said.
    “But they’re starting to organize.”
    Maman didn’t say anything. I imagined her plucking up Frederick by the arms and running her tests on him while he kicked around uselessly.
    “Eve is terrified of human beings,” Frederick said. “I’m not sure what she’ll do when she encounters the survivors.”
    “It will do what it decides is right.”
    “It won’t do anything. It associates human beings with silence and neglect and